stresses the price that Turkey
will pay if it fails to become a
party to the Kyoto Protocol

08

11

Virtuoso Þirin
Pancaroðlu
breathes new life
to Turkish harp

The story of a scarf

activist: How to make
someone hate your
nation's founder

YO U R WAY O F U N D E R S TA N D I N G T U R K E Y

Featurýng News and Comment from

SUNDAY, JUNE 22, 2008 WWW.SUNDAYSZAMAN.COM YTL 1.50

TENSION

BENEATH POLITICAL
CURRENT CRISIS LIES
SHIFT IN CAPITAL

Turkey continues its breathtaking Euro 2008 journey
draw through extra-time. Arda Turan, Semih Þentürk and
Hamit Altýntop scored for Turkey in the shootout. Luka
Modric and Ivan Rakitic also missed their penalties for
Croatia. Darijo Srna scored Croatia's only penalty.
After a scoreless 90 minutes in normal time, Ivan Klasnic
gave Croatia the lead in extra-time with a header in 119th minute.
"Super sub Semih equalized in injury time with a hard shot from
inside the area. Turkey will face Germany in the semifinals next
Wednesday in Basel, Switzerland. Both Germany and Turkey
finished second in their groups in the first round. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

PHOTO

M. BURAK BÜRKÜK

PHOTO

REUTERS

‘It's not over till it's over’ whenever or wherever the
opponent is Turkey. The Turks showed their battling
qualities in the Euro 2008 group stages, rallying from 10 down to defeat Switzerland 2-1 and scoring three times in the
last 15 minutes against Czech Republic to snatch a thrilling 3-2
win. With Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan
watching from the VIP stands, Turkey on Friday night again
accomplished the featwhen keeper Rüstü Reçber saved a
penalty shot from Mladen Petric to send Turkey into the
semifinals with a 3-1 shootout win over Croatia after a 1-1

AYÞE KARABAT, ANKARA
Turkey's most influential business
organization, the Turkish Industrialists
and Businessmen's Association (TÜSÝAD),
organized a meeting on Thursday and
called for a "national convention" on a new
constitution but failed to criticize judicial
interference
and
anti-democratic
interventions, once more turning eyes
to the "economic side" of the political
crisis Turkey is passing through.
According to many analysts, the
economic base of the recent fight in the
political arena is the reflection of a
capital shift between the "big Ýstanbul
bourgeoisie" and the rising "Anatolian
capital," which supports the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AK Party).
Ýstanbul Bilgi University's Professor
Erol Katýrcýoðlu examined the closure
case against the AK Party in one of his
articles and wrote that there is an obvious
relationship between these discussions
and the two different capital structures.
He provided some statistics: "If we define
powerful actors of the economy as
companies with more than 500 workers
and look at their share in added value, we
can see that in 1985 it was 66.1 percent;
in 1993, 58.5 percent; in 2001, 56.9
percent; and in 2004, the latest available
data set, 49 percent. CONTINUED ON PAGE 06

AK PARTY’S DEFENSE

STRONG FOR THE
INDICTMENT; WEAK
FOR A DEMOCRACY
MANIFESTO
KERÝM BALCI, ANKARA

Keeper Rüþtü
rides his luck to
become hero

Turkey goalkeeper Rüþtü Reçber wasn't supposed to play at the European Championship,
but when he did in Friday's quarterfinal against Croatia, the 35-year-old did enough to
become a national hero. When the the match ended 0-0 after 90 minutes, and 1-1 after extra
time, Rüþtü made a decisive save as he stopped a penalty kick by Mladen Petric. Rüþtü raised
his arms and ran towards his teammates to celebrate Turkey's best ever result in the
competition -- the semifinals, where Turkey will play Germany. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

Featuring news and articles from

The response submitted by the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK
Party) to the Constitutional Court was found
disproportionately strong compared to the
weak content and lack of internal logic of the
indictment, but many said it didn't meet the
expectations of the grassroots, which was
awaiting a "democratic manifesto."
AK Party sources were largely
responsible for the heightened expectations, as they spoke in the past of a
response that would be translated into
several languages and distributed across
Turkey. From the very beginning the AK
Party was readying its supporters for a
"respectful closure": Let them close the party
and let us leave a text that will guide Turkey to
a true democracy in the future. CONTINUED ON PAGE 04

S02-22-06-08.qxd

21.06.2008

02:36

Page 1

02 SUNDAY’S ZAMAN

S U N D AY, J U N E 2 2 , 2 0 0 8

FOCUS

Since first observed in Turkey 2002, 92 people have died of CCHF in the country, including 27 so far this year. The fever is much more prevalent in central Anatolian and eastern Anatolian provinces, especially Tokat, Çorum, Sivas, Amasya, Yozgat and Gümüþhane.

‘Awareness of týck-borne
dýsease must be raýsed’
NURSEL DÝLEK ANKARA

The cases of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), a viral disease
transmitted by ticks, is increasing year by
year, a fact that Associate Professor Zati
Vatansever says is due to lack of awareness of the
disease in rural areas, where it is most common.
"Mostly seen in rural areas, transmitted to people by ticks, increasing between the months of April
and October, coming suddenly and killing within
two weeks," reported the dailies and television news
broadcasts over the last several months. CCHF
seems to be the new threat to the Turkish population. Experts say the disease, whose victims have increased fivefold in the last five years, will become an
even bigger problem in coming years. Seen six years
ago for the first time in Turkey, CCHF has killed 134
people in the country thus far. Infecting two doctors
and one other medical staff member at the Ankara
Numune Education and Research Hospital, the seriousness of disease has reached an alarming point.

CCHF and Turkey

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CCHF entered world medical literature back in the
1940s. In the summer of 1944, it was seen in
Russian soldiers transporting agricultural products
in Western Crimea for the first time. In 1956, the
same disease was witnessed in Congo, which is
how the disease got its name. The history of the
disease in Turkey does not go back that far; CCHF
was first observed here in the summer of 2002.
Esra Demir, working as a nurse at the Tokat
Social Security Authority (SSK) Hospital, in 2002
suddenly felt unwell and was taken to the Ankara
Hacettepe University Hospital. Despite all the attempts to treat her, she died after one week and her
reason of death was recorded as unknown.
However, six more people died in a short period in
Tokat, a province in the Black Sea region, and the
deaths were announced as "deaths with unknown
reasons" to the media. The Ministry of Health at
first thought that this unknown disease resembled
Q fever, a disease caused by infection with the bacterium Coxiella burnetii. Yet upon finding that the
symptoms were not quite the same as those of Q

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fever, blood samples were sent to the laboratories of
the Pasteur Institute in France. The tests conducted
there finally confirmed that the disease was CCHF.
Detection of 327 CCHF cases in Tokat
province shows that it is one of the most affected
regions in Turkey. Thus the question arises, why
Tokat? To understand this, we must explore
the conditions causing the disease in the
province and the characteristics of infected ticks.

Female ticks pose greater threat
Vatansever, associate professor at the department
of parasitology at the veterinary school of
Kafkas University, has been conducting research on ticks since 1989. And since 2004,
when the disease began to spread, the
professor has been analyzing CCHF-infected ticks and the domestic and wild animals that
carry them. There are 850 tick species in the world,
with 32 of them present in Turkey; however, not all
ticks carry the CCHF virus. The virus is carried by
ticks of the Hyalomma marginatum marginatum
species. Virus-carrying ticks lodge in small wild animals such as mice or rabbits and in wild birds. They
mature on these smaller animals and then move on
to large wild animals, cattle and people. After the
ticks feed on their host, they detach themselves and
while male ticks die soon thereafter, females die after laying their eggs. Stating that the real threat is
posed by female ticks, Vatansever noted: "Three
to 5 percent of eggs of a tick bearing the CCHF
virus are also contaminated. In this sense, female ticks present more of a threat than males."

How ticks choose a host
Unless ticks find a suitable host, they live for an average of one year. In temperatures of 16-18 degrees
Celsius, their life spans can extend up to three years.
The characteristics of virus-carrying ticks are different
from other ticks. The ticks of the Hyalomma species
are also known as hunters. These ticks burrow into
soil, unlike many other ticks that live on plants. They
can feel vibrations and heat, while also being able to
smell and identify carbon dioxide from exhalation.
Vatansever noted that the infected ticks attach themselves to people who are sitting or lying down, not

Number of CCHF cases and
fatalities by year
Year
2002-2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

Cases
150
249
266
438
717
--

Deaths
6
13
13
27
33
27 (*)

* Approximately, according to the numbers
calculated from media reports
** (Data from Ministry of Health)

moving. "They feel vibrations and sense heat and carbon dioxide emitted from people and gravitate toward them. They start climbing from a person's feet
and look for an area on which to attach themselves."
Ornithologist Ahmet Kütükçü emphasized
another crucial point. He said
migratory birds, particularly
storks, play an active role in
spreading the disease. "Yet the real
host for the ticks are not birds,
but rodents," he noted.
The number of CCHF virustransmitting ticks is increasing in
the world, and this is related to an increase in suitable conditions, which include heat, humidity and
proper hosts, Vatansever noted. He also explained that while only 40 percent of tick
species can reproduce under normal weather
conditions, the ecological changes caused by
global warming have led to warmer weather, which
prolongs the life span of ticks and facilitates their reproduction. Virus-carrying ticks are able to survive in
regions where ocean climates -- typical of the Black
Sea region -- and semi-arid climates -- typical of central Anatolia and eastern Anatolia -- meet, and those
types of ticks prefer areas with small trees and cattle.
Conducting field studies on the range of virus-carrying ticks, Vatansever found that Çorum, Amasya,
Tokat, Yozgat, Sivas, Erzurum and Artvin are at the
highest risk. The least hazardous regions are the
Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, Vatansever said.

Taking a closer look at the deaths caused by ticks
reveals that cattle owners, farmers and shepherds
are the most at-risk population. In addition, soldiers, campers and picnickers, veterinarians, forest workers and health staff working in infected
areas are at risk. The percentage of deaths
among elderly people over 70 is also striking.
Noting that the CCHF-transmitting ticks live on
cattle and wild animals, Vatansever said it is pointless to worry about ticks in urban areas. However,
the professor complained about ignorance in rural
areas. "People in rural areas live with ticks from their

childhood to adulthood, and they think they know
about ticks. When they see photographs of ticks in
newspapers, they say that the ticks in the photos do
not resemble those living in their villages. They are
exposed to tick bites every summer, but they remove
them on their own. The village people do not want
to believe that CCHF-carrying ticks can be fatal. And
then they want to believe the nonsense alleging
that the ticks are sent from Israel. Unfortunately it
is very hard to do away with these kinds of beliefs,"
he said, adding that he believes if rural people
had just a little concern over the ticks, they would
take simple measures to protect themselves.

Tick bites kill within two weeks
The CCHF virus is transferred to people and animals
via tick bites. While the virus does not necessarily kill
animals, it is often fatal for people. Symptoms of the
infection are sudden fever, nausea, headache, vomiting and diarrhea. Bleeding of different parts of
body may also accompany these symptoms. Hürrem
Bodur, the chief of the Department of Infectious
Diseases at Ankara Numune Hospital, explained the
course of the disease, saying: "There are platelets
circulating in the blood in the human body functioning as bleeding clotters. But entering into human
body via tick bites, the virus causes the number
of platelet cells to decrease, which damages the
veins and which, in turn, causes hemorrhage.
External hemorrhage in parts like the nose and
ears or internal hemorrhage, causing parts of the
body to appear bruised and purplish, may occur
as a result of decreasing platelets," Bodur said.
Experts say that disease symptoms appear within
one to three days or 10 days at most after the virus
enters a person's body. It is vital for a patient to stay
in the hospital after infection. Patients who survive
after two weeks become permanently immune to the
disease. Raising awareness is of crucial importance to
effectively combat the disease. Experts have suggested that more action be taken in high-risk areas by
the ministries of health and agriculture. A regular
inspection of the animal population in problematic
regions is another important step to take.
Widespread education campaigns need to be conducted to raise awareness of the people in rural areas.

It was 1985, when playwright and Nobel
laureate Harold Pinter, along with the late
Arthur Miller, visited Turkey on behalf of
International PEN to investigate the situation of
writers in Turkey, a visit that inspired him to write
his play "Mountain Language" three years later.
"One of the things I learnt while I was
there was about the real plight of the Kurds:
quite simply that they're not really allowed to
exist at all and certainly not allowed to speak
their language," Pinter said in an interview at
the time, after his play was performed for the
first time at the Royal National Theatre in
London in October 1988. He was responding
to a question on why he wrote the play.
"For example, there's a publisher who wrote a
history of the Kurds and was sent to prison for 36
years for simply writing a history of the Kurds," he
went on saying, in an apparent reference to the thensituation of prominent sociologist Ýsmail Beþikçi.
"… The springboard, in answer to your question,
was the Kurds, but this play is not about the Turks
and the Kurds. I mean, throughout history, many languages have been banned -- the Irish have suffered,
the Welsh have suffered and Urdu and the Estonians'
language banned; the Basques' language was
banned, you know, at various times," Pinter said.
Taking into consideration the recent adoption of
a bill by the Turkish Parliament that allows full-time
state broadcasts in Kurdish, one might be tempted
to file Pinter's remarks away as "ancient" quotes,
belonging to the time when Turkey had not introduced reforms expanding freedoms and rights in
line with its European Union membership process.
However, the reality argues otherwise:
Hundreds of complaints have been filed by
prisoners, particularly since early 2007, to several chambers of the Human Rights Association
(ÝHD) regarding a ban on the use of Kurdish in
telephone conversations with their families.

Article 88 entry (p)
Sevim Salihoðlu, secretary-general of the
Ankara-based ÝHD, told Sunday's Zaman that
both the headquarters in the capital and ÝHD
chambers in several cities have been receiving a
lot of complaints on the issue of Kurdish language usage in prisons since early 2007.
"Sometimes, a complaint letter is signed by
10 prisoners. I can surely say that we have received complaints from more than 200 separate
prisoners," Salihoðlu added. The relatively high
number of formal complaints the ÝHD has received suggests the problem affects many more.
The ongoing problems are related to a Justice
Ministry guideline outlining rules for "Management
of Criminal Execution Institutions and Execution
of Penalties and Security Precautions."
Article 88 of the guideline outlines "the right
to talk on the telephone." Entry (p) of the same
article says: "Speaking takes place in Turkish.

However, if the convict doesn't know Turkish or
if it is determined that his/her relative -- via examination in location of the relative with whom
the convict notified [authorities] he will talk to -doesn't know Turkish, the talk is allowed and
recorded. If it is understood as a result of examination of the records that talk is used for activities
which have the possibility to constitute a crime,
then the convict is not allowed to talk in any other language than Turkish with the same relative."
Lawyer Ömer Halefoðlu, member of administration board of the ÝHD Diyarbakýr branch,
shared similar complaints by three prisoners
with Sunday's Zaman. "I've been convicted at
Erzurum Special Type Prison. Around since one
year. I'm not allowed to have telephone talk in
Kurdish which is my mother tongue with my family. My mother and my aunty cannot speak at all
Turkish. That's why, I can't talk to them since one
year. I'm demanding legal assistance from you in
order to be able to talk in my mother tongue,"
Fettah Karakaþ, one of those prisoners, wrote in
broken Turkish in a letter dated April 15, 2008.
Regarding three complaints, one from 2007,
the ÝHD Diyarbakýr office sent letters to the Justice
Ministry, Parliament's Human Rights Commission
and the Prime Ministry's Human Rights
Presidency (BÝHB). So far, only Human Rights
Commission Chairman Zafer Üskül, of the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party), has
responded. He basically and briefly referred the
ÝHD to "The Guideline Concerning Management
of Criminal Execution Institutions and Execution
of Penalties and Security Precautions."
"In a response letter to Üskül, we will list problems stemming from the guideline itself. For example; we will explain the arbitrary practices of security
forces during examination of the relative with whom
the convict notified authorities he will talk to, and
we will explain that the final report after these examinations does not always reflect the truth," Halefoðlu
told Sunday's Zaman in a brief telephone interview.
Sources from the Justice Ministry also referred
to the entry (p) of Article 88 of the same guideline,
when approached by Sunday's Zaman.
"The minister has asked for detailed information regarding news reports on the issue, and it is
still being assessed whether there is a trouble in the
implementation of the guideline," the sources, who
requested anonymity, told Sunday's Zaman, referring to recent Turkish media reports on the issue.
As Pinter's 20-minute-long play begins, the
audience sees a group of women waiting all day
through snowfall to visit their imprisoned husbands and sons. As Salihoðlu explained, almost
all of those relatives subject to grievances due to
the guideline are old people who cannot speak
Turkish at all. And the majority of those old
people are female, needless to say because they
lack even a primary school education. The ministry's final evaluation and the response to hundreds of complaints will give a clue on whether
Kurdish is still a "mountain language" in Turkey.

There are certain books that are unforgettable
and that shape the lives of people who read
them. They may differ from person to person,
but one of those books is definitely "The Little
Black Fish," written by Samad Behrangi, an
Iranian of Turkish descent who was killed by
the Shah's regime at the age of just 29.
Behrangi was a teacher and with his books
he tried to teach children the value of justice,
freedom, solidarity and questioning what they
hear. He used many political allegories and
maybe this is why his books were banned not
only in Iran but also in Turkey after the coup in
1980. Even before the coup, some teachers did
not like his books at all and became suspicious
of students who read them.
The story is told through the voice of an
old fish speaking to her 12,000 children and
grandchildren. She describes the journey of a
small black fish that leaves the safety of the local stream to venture into the world.
The path of the little fish leads down a waterfall and through the river to the sea. Along the way
the fish meets several interesting characters, including a helpful lizard and a dreaded pelican.
With both wisdom and courage, the fish
travels far indeed, and the tale ends with the
little black fish as an example for all the others, especially for the little red fish, but is also
open-ended. When I was a child, it drove me
crazy not to know what happened in the end
to the little black fish. It was always a question

CM Y K

AYÞE
KARABAT
a.karabat@todayszaman.com

for me as to why the little black fish, although
it met other fish along the way that were similar to it, left them and continued its journey
alone? Why couldn't it stay with them?
More then 30 years later, I think I have
found the answer: The aspects that characterize the little black fish are its endless courage
and ability to think independently.
I know many people who started their lives as
little black fish but ended up as ordinary fish. They
were the leftists who defended the rights of workers and wanted to establish a society based on social justice, but after a point in their lives they
started to defend the rights of the big bourgeoisie.
I know some people who when they were little
black fish defended freedoms, but now think that
a woman's right to dress however she pleases is
nonsense. I know people who were against
coups and became victims of them, but subsequently turned into supporters of the new kind
of coups in the form of e-memoranda, interference by the judiciary or post-modern processes.
I know people who promised a new constitution when they were acting like little black
fish, but became compromise seekers with the

traditional statist mentality.
There were other little black fish doing journalism and defending freedom of expression, but
then they started to accuse their colleagues of being the agents of clumsy psychological operations
when they saw the stories about the interesting
meetings between Deputy President of the
Constitutional Court Osman Paksüt and Turkish
Land Forces Commander Gen. Ýlker Baþbuð.
There were little black fish that said the
"Kurdish problem is my problem" and "if the
state made a mistake it must apologize," but
ended up as fish that rebuked a prominent
Kurdish intellectual in his room.
There were little black fish that used to say that
they were against all kinds of violence but unfortunately they are not able to follow policies independent from a man imprisoned on an island.
There were little black fish strongly defending the rights to freedom of belief, but
who are not able to show the same sensitivity for
other's religions when the time comes to do so.
The more unfortunate thing is that the little
black fish of the past are today accusing those who
are able to remain little black fish of being traitors
and perpetrators of plots. The ex-little black fish
are trying to humiliate the still-little black fish
by saying that the latter are political converts.
But who said being a little black fish is easy?
It is possible to end up as a grilled little black fish.
But this does not have to be the end of the little
black fish; some will continue to fight the current.

Israel's Silver-Garburg Piano Duo will mark Israel's
60th anniversary with Turkish music lovers in four
concerts. The duo will be performing the first concert
on June 23 at Ýzmir's Ýsmet Ýnönü Art Center; the second on June 24 at Ýstanbul's Anadolu Club; the third
on June 25 at Ýstanbul's Akbank Art Center, and the
last concert will take place June 26 at 8 p.m. at
Ankara's Bilkent Concert Hall.
Scottish rock band Travis will take the stage at next
Friday's Binboamania Fest at Ýstanbul's Parkorman,
headlining a lineup to also feature live gigs by British
cult rock band New Model Army, the Turkish alternative rockers Mor ve Ötesi and thriving indie rock
band Sakin. The festival will open its doors at 4 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased at www.biletix.com
Folksong ensemble Kardeþ Türküler celebrates its
15th anniversary with a concert on Tuesday night at
Ýstanbul's Turkcell Kuruçeþme Arena.

FESTIVALS
The 36th Ýstanbul International Music Festival runs
through June 30, offering 22 performances, including
symphonic concerts, chamber music concerts, instrumental recitals and vocal ensemble concerts. Festival
program at www.iksv.org/muzik/english/index.asp
The 22nd Ýzmir International Festival runs until July
22, featuring 10 performances by internationally acclaimed performers in its lineup. For the full program,
visit www.iksev.org/en/international_izmir_festival
The 15th Aspendos International Opera and Ballet
Festival in Antalya runs until July 3, featuring nine
performances that include classics such as "Swan
Lake," "Turandot," "Aida" and "La Bayadere." For a
detailed program, visit www.aspendosfestival.org

MUSEUMS
Ýstanbul's Pera Museum is currently hosting two
exhibitions. The first is a collection of prints, paintings, sculptures and ceramics by 20th century
Spanish artist Joan Miró and is on show until Aug.
31. The other collection, titled "Collage-Décollage,"
featuring the work of contemporary artists Burhan
Doðançay and Jacques Villeglé, will be on display until July 13. Tel.: (212) 334 9900
The Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Ýstanbul is hosting
the interactive exhibition "Brain: The Mysterious
Journey" until June 30. Tel.: (212) 369 6601
Archaeological finds from Artemision, the
Temple of Artemis near the Aegean archaeological site of Ephesus, are on display at an exhibition
titled "Artemision: Temple of a Goddess" at the
Ýstanbul Archaeology Museum. The museum is
located on Osman Hamdi Bey Road in Eminönü.
Tel.: (212) 520 7742
A collection called "Pinhole Photographs," showcasing 67 photographs taken using the "pinhole"
technique, is on show at the Ýstanbul Museum of
Modern Art until Aug. 24. Tel.: (212) 334 7300

EXHIBITIONS
The Derinlikler Art Center in Ýstanbul's Teþvikiye
district hosts a selection of the works of 26 master
Turkish painters, including Devrim Erbil, Komet,
Bedri Rahmi Eyüboðlu, Burhan Doðançay and Nuri
Ýyem, until July 12. Open every day between 9 a.m.
and 7 p.m. except Sundays. Tel.: (212) 227 2664
The "Summer Mix" exhibition at Ýstanbul's Ýlayda
Art Gallery runs until June 30, featuring works by 20
Turkish artists in the disciplines of painting, photography and sculpture. Open every day between 10
a.m. and 7 p.m. except Sundays. Tel.: 227 9292
Photography artist Ahmet Naim Danýþoðlu is
showcasing his collection titled "Recycling" until July
12 at the Leica Gallery in the Ýstanbul Photography
Center in Beyoðlu. Tel.: (212) 238 1160

‘The Frozen Waterfall’
MARION JAMES ÝSTANBUL

Culture shock! The very words pull you
up with a start. They call to mind confusion, depression, the shock of the new,
isolation, strangeness and being a stranger.
In the expat page of Today's Zaman, the weekday sister paper to Sunday's Zaman, articles often
deal with culture shock. How non-Turks ("foreigners") perceive Turkey and the Turks, and how they
adjust to the customs and ways of their host nation.
But the mailboxes of Today's Zaman
columnists reveal that the paper is also avidly
read by the Turkish diaspora: those Turks who
are expats, living in countries to the west or to
the east of their native Turkey. From the gastarbeiters -- the semi-skilled guest workers
who went to Germany in the 1960s -- to medical graduates going abroad to widen their
skills base, many Turks live outside of Turkey.
Do Turks, too, experience culture shock
when they leave the lands of Anatolia to study
or work abroad? If so, is it to the same extent
as an expat in Turkey?
The whole subject is treated expertly and sensitively by Gaye Hiçyýlmaz in her novel, "The Frozen
Waterfall." Herself a Turk living in the UK, Gaye
draws on her own experiences, and those of her
friends, to tell us the story of Selda and her family.
Selda, the youngest of the five children of
Turgut Bey and Selda Haným from Ýzmir, lives with
her mother, grandmother and sisters when her father and brothers go to work in Switzerland. As the
years go by, and she only sees them on their annual
trip to Turkey, she is pained to experience the
change in their relationship. "Now, when she saw
them on their summer visits, these brothers had
become distant. They were more like relatives from
another town. She hated it most when they talked

to each other in German, which she could not understand. She felt that they were shutting her out of
their world, and she did not like being silent."
Then, one day, the long awaited air tickets
come, and Selda, her mother and sisters are to
travel to Switzerland to be reunited with the
men of their family. Hiçyýlmaz sensitively captures a young girl's nervousness about traveling
abroad. Selda's grandmother sows the seeds of
doubt in her mind with her prejudices about the
Swiss. Foreigners, she claims,
are not as clean as the Turks:
"People say they walk straight
from the street into their nice
rooms with all the street filth
still on their shoes."
Mixed with the excitement of traveling, and being
reunited with her father and
beloved older brothers, is fear.
Fear of the unknown, but also
fear of losing touch with her
friends. She exchanged addresses, and promises to write
and remain friends forever,
but deep down inside she
knew many of her friends would never write.
But Selda fears above all things failure.
Inability to speak the language would hamper
her -- "she would not be able to say anything at
all in German, let alone anything clever." Her
sisters' taunts underscored this insecurity. "You
think you know everything, but you don't!" "I
know more than you." "So what? You just wait.
In Switzerland you won't know anything ... I
expect we'll all be bottom of the class."
Amidst all these fears of the future, Kemal
Amca comes to the rescue with a special day
tour around Ýstanbul. At night as he bids them

farewell he explains he showed them the
Bosporus Bridge so that she could be proud of
Turkey when in Switzerland, "and tell them that
we too have fine things. You can tell them, but
with a smile, that we are not some poor, forgotten
people knocking like beggars at the door of their
country, but that we too have made great things."
Expectations and reality; hopes and disappointments; dreams and their semi-fulfillment.
Even the flight to Switzerland is not as she had
imagined. "In films, people always settled themselves coolly
and elegantly into half-empty
planes; they leant back in wide
seats and sipped clear drinks
as they watched magnificent
views from the plane windows." Not struggling with
getting hand-baggage into the
overhead locker, and squeezing
past a passenger sitting in the
same row to reach your seat.
It was pouring with rain
when Selda and her female relatives arrived in Switzerland.
Even her father looked different, with his beard. But she gasped in amazement
when she saw the mountains, they were
breathtaking, as was the lake which stretched
farther than she could see in each direction.
Her first day of school, as expected, was a
day of not understanding. The teacher smiled
kindly, and another pupil tried to help, but
Selda understood nothing. Over the first few
weeks and months things gradually became
clearer, but they were still different. Hiçyýlmaz
summarizes this clash between expectation and
reality with the words, "She had known, of
course, that this foreign country would be dif-

ferent, but she had not realized that everything
about it would be so different. Now she felt that
she had been foolish." Selda realized that to
survive and learn she needed to be observant:
her eyes had to do twice the work as her ears
and tongue were temporarily redundant.
It is this being struck dumb, the helpless
sense of being unable even to express your wishes as a little child does, that is often the most serious contributor to culture shock for the expatriate. Selda finds a friend who empathizes as he,
too, had been a foreigner in a strange land. "Only
Ferhat understood, because he had lived it."
But in the words of Ferhat's encouragement,
it does get better. Selda finds her way to triumph through the difficulties.
One of the crystallizing moments for her
own understanding is when she sees, for the first
time, a frozen waterfall. The relentless movement
of water, stopped by the winter freeze, seemed to
her a picture of her own life in culture shock.
"There, at the top, where the water first fell
over the edge, was the frozen waterfall. It was as
though the stream had stopped and hung there in
the air, like the swelling crest of a winter wave in
wind-whipped Ýzmir Bay. But this wave had not
rolled on. It had not broken and foamed against
the rocks; it hung there, just under the sky."
Selda finds the key to understanding her
anguish in her new setting as she watches the
frozen torrents that pour forth no more. As her
experiences in "The Frozen Waterfall" are like a
mirror to the pain an expatriate feels, this wonderful story can help many readers enunciate
their emotions, and begin to find their own way
like Selda to flourish where they are planted.
"The Frozen Waterfall" by Gaye Hiçyýlmaz,
Published by Faber & Faber, 6.99 pounds in paperback, ISBN: 978-057119495-7

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‘CROSSFIRE'

‘KING OF ITHACA'

by Andy McNab
Published by Transworld
6.99 pounds in paperback
Fiction: thriller

by Glyn Iliffe
Published by Macmillan
12.99 pounds in paperback
Fiction: historical

Body-guard to a TV crew on the streets of
war-torn Basra, the life of ex-operator
Nick Stone is saved by a reporter's swift
action as a roadside bomb explodes. When
the man vanishes within hours, Stone is
asked to find him. The trail leads from
Iraq to Bermuda, London and Kabul.

It was a time of myth and mystery. It was
a time of heroes. Greece is a country in
turmoil, divided by feuding kingdoms and
desires for wealth, power and revenge.
When Eperitus, a young exiled soldier,
comes to the aid of a group of warriors in
battle, his incredible adventures start.

CM Y K

‘PUTIN AND THE
RISE OF RUSSIA'

‘FAME SCHOOL
STAR MAKER'

by Michael Steurmer
Published by Orion
20 pounds in hardback
Current affairs

by Cindy Jefferies
Published by Usborne
4.99 pounds in paperback
Children aged 11+

The country that came in from the cold. a
brilliant analysis of Russian Federation
President Vladimir Putin and the key role a
resurgent Russia has to play in world affairs. The questions remain about what constitutes Russia's national interest. This is an
insightful biography of a truly global figure.

Since Tara and her band won the international Battle of the Bands competition,
they've become famous across the country
and in huge demand. But Tara hates being
in the limelight and is dreading performing at a massive summer concert. This is
the 11th book in this smash-hit series.

S11-22-06-08.qxd

21.06.2008

02:59

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CULTURE&ARTS

The ongoing Ýstanbul International
Music Festival will reintroduce çeng -the long-forgotten Ottoman-era classical music instrument from the harp family -- to
the world music lexicon next week, one of the
festival’s many “benefits” as its slogan suggests.
Audiences will witness the rebirth of the çeng
in the historical atmosphere of Hagia Eirene on
Tuesday night when composer Hasan Uçarsu’s
“Concerto for Harp, Çeng and Orchestra” gets its
world premiere with a performance by harpist
Þirin Pancaroðlu, accompanied by the Tekfen
Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert starts at 8
p.m. and is aptly titled “Old World, New World.”
It also features Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien,
Op. 45” and Dvorak’s “Symphony in E minor, Op.
96, No. 9” from “The New World” in its program.
The project to reintroduce the çeng to classical
music listeners is the brainchild of Pancaroðlu,
Uçarsu and instrument producer Mehmet Söylemez.
The concerto, titled “Davetsiz Misafirler” (Home
Crashers), following its world premiere, will get its
first performance abroad in July in Amsterdam as
part of the upcoming 10th World Harp Congress.
The çeng, or Turkish harp, believed to have
descended from ancient Near Eastern instruments, was a popular instrument in the Near
East and Ottoman culture until the 17th century, when it began to lose its popularity. The
word comes from the Persian word “chang,”
which means “harp.” The basic aim of the project is to turn the çeng back into a part of musical
culture. The 30-minute “Concerto for Harp,
Çeng and Orchestra” has been composed in
two different arrangements, one for a symphony
orchestra and the second for a chamber orchestra.
Composer Uçarsu explains how he brought together the harp and the çeng, which are, after all,
related to one another: “I had before me two different instruments and two different cultural
worlds represented by these instruments. … With
its mechanical system and improved modern capacity, the harp is actually more suited to concertos. As for the çeng, which is more Eastern and has
been forgotten, it possesses a calmer, more serene,
contemplative nature. It is an instrument that pursues a deeper strain of thinking. Anyway, it’s for this
reason that for hundreds of years, its sounds accompanied high-level meetings [in the Ottoman court],

SUNDAY’S ZAMAN 11

S U N D AY, J U N E 2 2 , 2 0 0 8

Þirin Pancaroðlu

breathes new life into Turkish harp
The 5,000-year history of the çeng
The harp, which throughout history has appeared in various civilizations in many different forms and sizes, was also used in
Mesopotamia. The çeng was first seen in Iran around 3,000 B.C., and around the sixth century it earned its more delicate
form seen in miniatures. This instrument, which was at the peak of its popularity during the Middle Ages, arrived in Ottoman
musical culture by way of Iran. Until its disappearance in the last quarter of the 17th century, the çeng was an indispensable part of traditional Ottoman music. The çeng’s popularity began to dwindle with the spread of the ud, the Turkish lute.
The çeng, which over centuries became thinner and thinner as an instrument, also became more and more difficult for people to play. Unable to compete with the ud in terms of keeping in tune, the çeng lost its popularity over time. The last written
source that speaks about the çeng is Evliya Çelebi’s 17th century “Seyahatname” (Book of Travels). According to Çelebi, while
there were many ud players to be found in Ýstanbul in 1660, there were only around 10 çeng players to be heard in the city.

CM Y K

or gatherings of poets, artists and philosophers.”
Uçarsu’s concerto, inspired by Ottoman
music, will be presented to audiences in its final form as a modern piece that contains traditional timbres. Says Uçarsu: “During the composition of this piece, I thought about how
these two separate instruments could express
the differing cultural values they represented,
and so I based the concerto on a widened and freer
interpretation of Ottoman instrumental music.”
A recording of the concerto will be made in
collaboration with the Ýstanbul Technical
University’s (ITÜ) Center for Advanced Studies in
Music (MIAM) in the days following the premiere.
Pancaroðlu, the general architect of the project,
first came across the çeng in Ottoman miniatures.
Pancaroðlu, praised by The Washington Post as being “a great talent of international caliber,” says she
was very excited to discover the existence of this
small harp in the Ottoman-Turkish culture, although it had been almost entirely forgotten during
the last few centuries. She explains that because the
word “harp” itself is not a Turkish word, she has
seen many people in Turkey confusedly mistake
the harp for a “foreign” musical instrument.
Pointing out that Turkish culture does indeed
have its own version of the harp, the acclaimed virtuoso says: “This is actually an instrument that has
a place in the music of almost every Eastern culture.
It was brought to the West through Hellenistic
culture. And thus the West, in naming it the harp,
actually took this instrument over as its own and
developed it, bringing it to where it is today.”
Further following the traces of the instrument
in the Near East, Pancaroðlu found out that the
çeng had also inspired many different branches
of art. “Its body, unlike the Western harp, has a
long, beautiful, lightly bent appearance, and just
as the çeng was a fixture of many miniature
paintings from the 14th to the 17th centuries, it
was also a very popular motif among poets of the
time. A poet from Bursa named Ahmed-i Da’i
wrote in the 14th century his ‘Çengname,’ a poem
that uses the çeng to talk about life philosophy.”
The final traces of the çeng are found in Ýstanbul,
and they date as far back as 350 years, Pancaroðlu
explains. “We know, for instance, that the çeng
used to be played in the Ottoman court, or even
by the women in the harem.” Ýstanbul Sunday’s Zaman

02:54

Page 1

12 SUNDAY’S ZAMAN

June 14
A cargo train was hit by a mine blast on a track in the
southeastern province of Muþ injuring three railway workers were
injured, security sources said. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’
Party (PKK) is thought to have planted the mine.
June 15
Top aides to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert traveled to
Turkey to resume indirect peace talks with Syria, Israeli media reported.
The television reports said the aides, Yoram Turbovitch and Shalom
Turgeman, had arrived in Turkey to resume the talks.
Two goals in the last three minutes gave Turkey a remarkable 3-2 win over the Czech Republic in a winner-take-all Euro
2008 thriller, earning a quarterfinal meeting with Croatia. Turkey
finished with six points, three ahead of the Czechs, who were
eliminated along with co-hosts Switzerland.
Some 1.53 million high school graduates planning on pursuing a
higher education vied in the national Student Selection Examination
(ÖSS) in all provinces and districts of Turkey and in Nicosia, the capital
of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC), as well as Geneva,
where three Turkish national soccer team players took the exam.
Eight people were injured in a blast in a cafe in Ýstanbul’s
Beylikdüzü district. The cause of the blast, which damaged the
cafe and neighboring buildings, was unknown.
Earlier tensions in relations with neighboring countries have
been gradually disappearing, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani
said, noting that these relations are improving. Barzani was speaking
with executives from his Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) offices at
a meeting held in Salahaddin, Arbil. “Tension with some neighboring
countries has begun to disappear and relations are changing for the
better,” Barzani added, in apparent reference to relations with Turkey.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih expressed willingness to include Turkish companies in new tenders to develop the
country’s oil and gas fields, calling Turkey a gateway for Iraq to open
up to Europe. “I spoke with Energy Minister Hilmi Güler and Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and told them that we have been
planning to include some major Turkish companies on the list of
companies which will invest in the Iraqi oil sector,” Salih was quoted
as saying in an interview with news station NTV over the weekend.
US Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Barack
Obama voiced support for the Ýstanbul-based Greek Orthodox
Patriarchate, calling on Turkey to grant religious freedom to the patriarchate. Obama’s remarks came in an interview with the Greek bureau of Voice of America, Greek media reported over the weekend.
The Justice Ministry released a statement announcing that it has
no authority to give orders to public prosecutors, in response to an appeal from the Constitutional Court for the justice minister to start legal
probes into publications critical of the court’s recent rulings.
June 16
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party)
submitted its final written defense in the closure case filed
against it at the Constitutional Court. The AK Party turned in its
defense statement ahead of the deadline in an attempt to speed
up the legal process to avoid lingering ambiguity.
M.D., a patient suspected of having Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic
fever (CCHF), died in the central Anatolian city of Konya.
EU foreign ministers agreed to ease the economic isolation of
Turkish Cypriots via adopting certain amendments to the EU’s Green
Line Regulation, which was approved back in 2004. The measures
“aim at enhancing trade and economic integration on the island,” the
EU ministers said in a statement, adding that they would help “support” both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders in finding a negotiated settlement to end the 34-year division of the island.
The unemployment rate increased to 10.7 percent as of
March 2008, up from 10.4 percent in the same period of last year,
the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) announced.
Joining other independent central banks across the world in a
move in line with market expectations, the Turkish Central Bank raised
its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 16.25 percent in a bid to fight

S U N D AY, J U N E 2 2 , 2 0 0 8

ALMANAC

Event of the week
TODAY’S ZAMAN

21.06.2008

Newspaper exposes
secret military plans
to ‘remake' society
An alleged military plan to reshape society made its mark this past week.
The Taraf daily claimed in a report on
Friday that the Turkish Armed Forces
(TSK) had devised a comprehensive
secret plan of action to intervene in
politics and civilian life, basing its story on a leaked military document.
According to the document, the military's "Information Support Activity
Action Plan" went into force in
September 2007 and is composed of
a series of "measures" against the
government, which the military deems
the source of a "religious reactionary
movement." Taraf's story comes at a
time when the Constitutional Court is
at loggerheads with the Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) government; last month the court annulled a
bill sponsored by the AK Party that
would have allowed the Muslim headscarf to be worn on university campuses. The Turkish General Staff released
a statement on Friday afternoon denying Taraf's report. "There is no such official document approved by the commanding ranks in General Staff
records," the statement said. The military document Taraf published defines
the plan's goals as "bringing public
opinion into line with the TSK on issues
the TSK is sensitive about, preventing
the development of incorrect opinions
about the TSK, ensuring the unity and
solidarity of opinions and actions within

PHOTO

S12-22-06-08.qxd

the TSK." The same introductory chapter issues a caveat, stressing the need
to avoid "conflict with other state agencies" and also avoid "the image of intervening in daily politics."
The plan also emphasizes that it is
necessary to "bring universities, presidents of the higher judiciary, press members and artists into line with the TSK because they have the power to influence
public opinion, and to ensure that these individuals act in the same way as the TSK."
Of note is a secret meeting between Constitutional Court Justice
Osman Paksüt and Land Forces
Commander Gen. Ýlker Baþbuð, also
recently exposed by Taraf.
The plan claims the AK Party government and its municipalities are organizing
activities to spread an Islamic lifestyle in
society. The document also defines a
new constitution drafted by the AK Party
as against the idea of "nation-state."

soaring inflation stemming largely from high energy prices.
June 17
The Turkish General Staff said a group of Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists had been killed in northern Iraq. A
statement posted on the General Staff’s Web site said close to 21
members of the outlawed PKK were killed late on Monday as the
group attempted to infiltrate Turkey from northern Iraq.
Turkey opened accession talks with the European Union on
two more negotiating chapters and urged France, a firm opponent of
Turkish membership that will take over the bloc’s presidency next
month, not to raise obstacles to further progress in the slow-moving
accession process. “We expect that the French presidency will be a
fair, impartial and transparent presidency as we have been told on
various occasions. We believe our EU accession process will be further advanced during the French presidency,” Foreign Minister Ali
Babacan told a joint press conference with his Slovenian counterpart,
Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency,

after an accession conference in Luxembourg.
The Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office announced that President
Abdullah Gül cannot be prosecuted in connection with an embezzlement case for which a former prime minister is currently under house arrest. The prosecutor noted that under Turkey’s current Constitution, the
president cannot be tried for any allegation other than treason.
Presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee Obama once
again voiced commitment to the official recognition of an alleged genocide of Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. In a letter
sent to an influential Armenian diaspora lobbying group, Obama said he
shared the group’s view that Washington “must recognize the events of
1915 to 1923, carried out by the Ottoman Empire, as genocide.”

the reporters in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, set to
host a meeting of OIC foreign ministers, Ýhsanoðlu said
Muslim countries also fully supported Turkey’s bid for a
non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The UN is confident that a revived peace process will
conclude in a deal that has so far proven elusive to reunify
the ethnically divided island of Cyprus, UN Undersecretary
for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe said. Speaking at a news
conference in Nicosia at the end of a two-day visit to the island, Pascoe said there are “huge expectations” internationally that “Cyprus will make it this time” after 34 years of
repeated failures to reach a UN-brokered agreement.

June 18
Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC) Secretary-General
Ekmeleddin Ýhsanoðlu said that Arab countries had received “very
positively” Turkish mediation in Israeli-Syrian peace talks, expressing hope that the talks would yield a favorable result. Speaking to

June 19
Turkey’s most influential business organization, the
Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association
(TÜSÝAD), proposed holding a convention for a new constitution that would bring together all segments of the political spectrum and society. The convention, TÜSÝAD
suggested, would be made up of 50 members, three-fifths
of whom would be representatives from political parties.
The rest of the members would be representatives of civil
society organizations and the academic world from various segments of society. The convention could work for 18
months, TÜSÝAD suggested, to draft a new constitution
for Turkey that would meet international standards.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan said fatal
accidents at shipyards in Ýstanbul’s Tuzla district have recently overshadowed Turkey’s success in the shipbuilding sector. Erdoðan was speaking at a meeting held at Ýstanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace with a number of ministers
and representatives from shipyard unions to discuss recent worker deaths at the notorious Tuzla shipyards.
The European Parliament warned that the closure
of Turkey’s ruling AK Party could bring membership negotiations with the candidate country to a halt, adding to
European criticism of the court case, as Washington
urged Turkish judges to heed the electorate’s choice
while deciding the final verdict. Hans-Gert Poettering,
president of the European Parliament, dismissed
prospects for terminating accession negotiations with
Turkey because of institutional problems faced by the 27nation bloc in the aftermath of rejection of a reform treaty
for the EU in a referendum in Ireland over the weekend.

REUTERS

Photo of the week

PHOTO

Turkey marches
into semifinals of
UEFA Euro 2008
Turkey equalized in dramatic style with the last
kick of extra time before beating Croatia on
penalties after their breathtaking Euro 2008
quarterfinal ended 1-1 on Friday night.
The Turks, who also reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup, now meet
Germany in Basel on Wednesday.
Extra time had finished in heart-stopping
fashion after an absorbing encounter with two
goals in the last three minutes.
Ivan Klasnic headed Croatia in front at the
near post after a good run and cross by Luka
Modric in the 119th minute.
But there was still time for comeback king
Turkey, which twice rallied from behind to win in
the group stages, to equalize in nerve-tingling
style as Semih Þentürk's left-foot shot took a deflection past keeper Stipe Pletikosa.
Croatia then made a mess of the penalty
shootout, with Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic
missing the target before Turkey's 3-1 shootout
victory was clinched when Rustu Recber saved
from Mladen Petric.
Turkey trio Arda Turan, Semih Senturk
and Hamit Altintop were all successful with
their spot kicks.
"We fought and fought and the players keep
outdoing themselves, said Turkey manager
Fatih Terim. "Our people can celebrate now. This
victory is very important for us. If our people are
proud of us then we're proud of our people."

June 20
A forest fire that erupted in the Gelibolu
(Gallipoli) district of the western province of Çanakkale
on Wednesday was brought under control. A statement
released by the Forestry and Environment Ministry said
the fire affected 80 hectares of red pine forest area.
The role played by Turkey in its region is greatly
appreciated by neighboring countries, which have encouraged Ankara to use its clout to resolve more disputes in the area, Foreign Minister Babacan said.
Babacan made his comments to reporters on the sidelines of a foreign ministerial-level meeting of the OIC,
also saying that many of topics on the OIC agenda
were related to the geography surrounding Turkey.
The Constitutional Court granted an extension
of the deadline for the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society
Party (DTP), facing closure, to prepare the oral defense
it will argue before the court.

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TRAVEL

SUNDAY’S ZAMAN 13

S U N D AY, J U N E 2 2 , 2 0 0 8

Waterfalls by
the Munzur
Mountains
TODAY’S ZAMAN, CÝHAN

Kemaliye’s historic homes

PHOTOS

Historic structures
by the Munzur
Mountains

Kemaliye’s
Stone Road

Kemaliye’s Dark Canyon

Gateway to the Stone Road

KEMALÝYE

Kemaliye has two
particularly strong selling
points, the first of which
is the natural beauty of its
location amid the lush
greenery and superb
unspoiled scenery of the
Munzur Mountains. The
air up here is enthrallingly
fresh, and this is a great
place for lovers of outdoor
activities, with possibilities
for walking, climbing,
kayaking, mountain biking,
even hang-gliding

PAT YALE KEMALÝYE

Wow! It's not often that travel writers find
themselves at a loss for words powerful
enough to describe what they've seen,
but when they do you can be sure that they've
stumbled upon something truly amazing. On the
bus into Kemaliye, I'd heard fellow passengers
muttering about the Taþ Yolu (Stone Road), and
had thought it sounded rather romantic, a bit like
the Ýpek Yolu (Silk Road), which has always had
the power to conjure up exotic images of Oriental
fantasy. Common sense told me that was probably
nonsense. It was a road, after all, and presumably
one that lacked asphalt. Then I glimpsed the Taþ
Yolu, an extraordinary feat of human endeavor
that exceeded my wildest imaginings.
Let's rewind a bit. The Taþ Yolu is a road that
links Kemaliye in Central Anatolia with Divriði,
the remote town, sort of near Sivas, that just happens to possess, in the 13th century Ulu CamiDarüþþifa complex, Turkey's most unexpected
world heritage site. It's a road that was more than
a century in the making, and when you see it you
can immediately understand why. It trundles
along a ridge high above the Euphrates (Fýrat)
River, and, in the course of its progress, passes
through a phenomenal 4,722 meters of separate
tunnels, each one of them laboriously hacked out
of the mountainside. As if that in itself were not
enough, the road and the tunnels pass through
the so-called Karanlýk Kanyon (Dark Canyon), a
rocky gorge so deep that the sun barely penetrates
its bottom, with the river sauntering through it a
great deal more calmly than it has any right to.
The Taþ Yolu and the Karanlýk Kanyon are
names that should be on every tourist's lips. So
why aren't they? Well, it probably comes down
to their location. Tell a friend that you're going to

Kemaliye, and 99 times out of 100 the response
will be a blank look, followed by a quick,
"Where's that?" Flick through the indices of the
main guidebooks aimed at foreign visitors -Lonely Planet, Rough Guide or the Blue Guide -and you won't find one word about Kemaliye.
Look in Âzer Bortaçina's "Doðu Anadolu"
(Eastern Turkey) guide, on the other hand, and
you will find more than 20 pages devoted to it.
Something wrong somewhere, surely?
The reasons Kemaliye has slipped below the
foreign tourism radar are probably twofold. In the
first place, it's not very easy to get to. Although
it's now possible to drive there from Divriði,
Divriði itself is pretty hard to reach. There are daily minibus services from Erzincan, Elazýð and
Malatya, but they're somewhat unreliable. The
bus service I planned to take from Malatya, for
example, was cancelled, whereupon I found myself redirected to a carpet shop and thence to a
nearby car park. From there a minibus eventually
conveyed me to Kemaliye, a sequence of developments that it would have been pretty tough for
someone with no Turkish to work out.
The second reason also has to do with location, although in a rather different sense.
Look for Kemaliye on a map and you will see
that it's fairly close to Tunceli, a town that acted as the northwestern outpost of the troubles
that tore the southeast of Turkey apart in the
1990s. Kemaliye itself had nothing to do with
this, but inevitably fell victim to the security
arrangements that bedeviled traveling around
this part of Turkey until quite recently.
Now suddenly Kemaliye is waking up to its
tourism potential. It has two particularly strong
selling points, the first of which is the natural
beauty of its location amid the lush greenery and
superb unspoiled scenery of the Munzur

Mountains. The air up here is enthrallingly fresh,
and this is a great place for lovers of outdoor activities, with possibilities for walking, climbing,
kayaking, mountain biking, even hang-gliding
(although you can also take a less energetic boat
ride through the Karanlýk Kanyon). In spring
and early summer the yaylas (high plateaus)
break out in a rich carpet of wild flowers. A
few lucky visitors may even get to spot the
wild goats that live on the mountainside.
But Kemaliye is also a town with a history. As
Eðin, it was a place with a mixed Turkish and
Armenian population, which had its name
changed to Kemaliye in 1922 to commemorate its
part in the Turkish War of Independence under
the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Traditionally, local houses were built from wood
and stone. The ground floor was made of stone interspersed with strips of mulberry wood, while the
second floor, which would have accommodated
the family's living quarters, was usually made of
wattle and daub faced with wood. Some houses
had a third floor, while almost all of them had an
open-sided loft area edged with wood. Their huge
doors were studded with hand-carved nails and
adorned with intricate metal door knockers; the

HOW TO GET THERE
One afternoon bus from Erzincan,
Elazýð and Malatya at 3:30 or 4 p.m., returning
at 6 a.m. Car rental to explore villages and Taþ
Yolu: Kanyon Rent A Car in Kemaliye
Tel.: (446) 751 2025

upper knockers were designed to give off a deeper
sound than the lower ones, thereby enabling people to know immediately whether a man or
woman was at their door. You'll still find many of
these houses surviving today, especially if you
wander up to the upper part of town.
Upper Kemaliye harbors two fine
mosques, the Tasdibi and Orta Camis. A
mountain stream pours down beside the
Orta Cami, ensuring that those inside have
the sound of gushing water as a constant
backdrop to their prayers. Just below the
Orta Cami, a restored flourmill is back in
noisy business, while across the way the attractively decorated Lökhane serves freshlymade fruit juices and "lök," a sweet made
from mulberries mixed with walnuts.
On the outskirts of town heading for
Malatya you'll see an especially fine stone
building with what looks like a wooden gazebo
on its roof. This was once the Armenian church
and now houses a small, rather dusty museum
of local ethnographic artifacts. But you certainly
shouldn't end your visit without heading out to
some of the surrounding villages, which, with
their cobbled streets and rickety houses, have a
wonderfully rustic charm about them. In an
afternoon you can easily drive round Apcaða,
Ergü, Kozlupýnar and Yeþilyurt Villages, places
where old men and women sit for hours doing
nothing at all, where a puppy snoozes beneath
the makeshift kennel of a donkey saddle,
where a donkey feasts on fallen mulberries,
and where an invitation to coffee can wind
up with the reading of the grains ("dollars
coming your way, along with two suitors").
Unfortunately, even in the villages it's almost
impossible to find an old wooden building that
has not been faced (or defaced) with what the
locals call "saç," ugly corrugated iron without
which -- or so they assure visitors -- the many
semi-abandoned houses might long since have
collapsed. Kemaliye is hardly some forgotten
mountain Shangri-La then -- and the arrival of a
high-rise Housing Development Administration
of Turkey (TOKÝ) development is surely to be
lamented -- but it's still the sort of place where
a travel writer can arrive planning to stay for
two days and still be there a week later.

Michael Stipe declares videos dead
Michael Stipe thinks the music video is a "dead medium" _ but the R.E.M.
singer still wants the band's songs to be accompanied by some kind of visuals.
So instead of hiring a top video director to create a clip for their new song "ManSized Wreath," they hired an advertising agency. New York, AP

Turkey's Official Gazette, where new laws must be
published before they go into effect, is a drain on
the nation's budget, as it uses up nearly YTL 18 million every year without any significant return.
In comparison to Turkey's privately owned newspapers, which have to struggle with strict press laws, financial difficulties and overall low newspaper readership
rates, the Official Gazette has it good. In fact, it is much
better off than most newspapers in the world.
It is only newspaper in Turkey that does not have to
worry about the usual challenges of being in the media
business, such as finding advertisers or ensuring effective distribution, since it is the only press organ funded
by the state in a country where the total circulation of all
newspapers does not even top 5 million copies.
The Official Gazette, which survives mainly on state
funds, insists on using obsolete distribution methods in
this golden age of communications technologies;
although it has made good use of its huge budget in
terms of printing technology investments -- the newspaper has the most cutting-edge printing equipment at
all times. It also does not need to worry about finding
news sources or stories, unlike most other newspapers.
The history of the Official Gazette (Resmi Gazete in
Turkish) dates back to the final period of the Ottoman
Empire. It was first published on Nov. 11, 1831 under the
name of Takvim-i Vekayi as a weekly publication. On April
23, 1920, the day Parliament opened, the name of the newspaper was changed to Ceride-i Resmiye and it was also
changed into a daily. Later the name was changed to Resmi
Ceride and finally to Resmi Gazete.
Currently this newspaper, published by a general
directorate under the prime ministry, retails for 30 YKr.
On days the newspaper has more than 96 pages, 10 YKr
is added to the retail price for each additional 32 pages.
Advertisers pay YTL 10 for every single line of ad space - and that's the untaxed price. The yearly subscription fee
is YTL 195. If one decides to go and pick up the newspaper from its publishing house's department of circulating
capital, as some public agencies still do, the annual subscription fee falls down to YTL 75. Overseas subscriptions
cost $350, with airmail charges included.
The Official Gazette publishes all decisions and applications of the state, including Constitutional amendments,
laws, regulations, bylaws, decrees and public tender
announcements. Under Turkish law, judicial decisions -such as the recent Constitution Court decision to annul constitutional amendments that would have lifted a ban on the
Muslim headscarf on university campuses -- also have to be
printed in the Official Gazette. The expression, "This law
will go into force upon being printed in the Official Gazette,"
is placed at the end of all bills adopted in Parliament.
The Official Gazette still uses distribution methods
abandoned long ago. However, reading it online is free
of charge. Issues from the past year are sold at regular
price. The paper has a total of 6,940 subscribers and it
prints 10,157 copies daily. The daily is published 354
days a year. The budget allocated for the Gazette this
year is YTL 18.7 million. It employs a total of 131 people,
36 being public servants and 95 being workers.

Bankruptcy ads on the house!
Another publication has an easy life like that of the Official
Gazette is the Commercial Registry Journal, published daily
by the Information Services Department of the Turkish
Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) .
The newspaper employs 25 people and has 293,477 readers
who constitute a captive audience, as subscriptions are
required to do business with public agencies.
Only annual subscriptions are available at the journal.
The subscription fee is a towering YTL 8,000. All fees,
including the advertising prices, are fixed only after the
approval of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
According to officials at the journal, it was founded on a
French model. The daily is, on average, 875 pages long.
In Turkey, everybody who wants to begin commercial
activities must register their legal status with this newspaper.
This journal also has the highest number of advertisers in
the Turkish press. In 2007, a total of 574,050 advertisements
were placed in the newspaper. On average, it prints 2,287
ads a day. It is delivered to subscribers by mail and private
cargo as well as through distribution companies.
Advertisements cost 20 YKr per word for regular companies and 1.3 YKr for cooperatives. Announcing a start-up
business -- required by the law -- costs YTL 30. However, if
you go bankrupt, the costs will be on the house, as
announcements of ending trade activity are free of charge.
An individual copy of the journal retails at YTL 1.